Nine o'clock in the evening is a good time to drink porridge to cleanse the intestines, but there are no customers drinking porridge in the cubicle.
Looking at the black sewage stained on the uppers of my shoes, I finally understood the reason why there were no customers. Even though this porridge shop had a poetic name, there were so many health hazards that no one dared to risk their lives.
There was no one drinking porridge, but the room was filled with steam, so it was obvious that someone was cooking porridge.
Through the hot steam, I looked towards the end of the compartment.
There was a stove at the end of the compartment, and there was a porcelain pot on the stove. The porcelain pot was roasted by the fire and turned black all over, as if it was about to shatter into ashes.
At this moment, the porcelain pot was not covered, and a spoon was inserted into the porcelain pot to stir the sticky porridge in the porcelain pot.
The spoon was held in a skinny hand. I looked along this hand and saw an old man squatting next to the stove.
This skinny hand is exactly the right hand of this old man.
This old man was wearing a red loose robe and was looking at the porridge in the porcelain pot with all his attention. While he was watching, black mucus was flowing from his nose.
The black snot splashed into the porcelain pot and merged with the boiling porridge.
Seeing this scene, I almost felt sick. No wonder no one patronizes such porridge.
However, I did not focus on the porridge. Instead, I looked at the red robe on the old man and pondered in confusion: "This old man has a haggard face and is probably seventy years old. How can he wear such bright clothes?"
Most Chinese old people wear plain and simple clothes, and they only wear red robes on the day of death.
Therefore, the red robe is also called the shroud of the dead.
It is taboo for living people to wear the shrouds of the dead, so the living elderly generally do not wear red robes. They believe that once they wear red robes, black and white will take the opportunity to kill themselves.
The older people get, the more they cherish life. In order to prolong life, it is understandable to believe in such myths. However, the old man in front of me does not seem to believe in evil.
When he heard the sound of my footsteps, the old man didn't turn his head and just cooked porridge wholeheartedly. It seemed that cooking porridge was his last obsession.
The old man didn't take the initiative to attract customers, so I had to take the lead and say: "Grandpa, give me a bowl of porridge."
In fact, I'm not hungry. The purpose of entering this store is to confirm what Gu Ya said. However, it's a bit difficult for me to speak just asking about things without ordering anything.
What's more, this old man didn't want to talk to me at all. If he didn't use the excuse of ordering porridge, he would definitely ignore me and concentrate on cooking porridge.
"If Gu Ya didn't lie to me, this old man should have forgotten Zhang Tao." I thought to myself.
For some unknown reason, Zhang Tao liked to patronize this porridge shop during his lifetime. I saw him walking out of it many times. If this old man doesn’t remember Zhang Tao, it proves that what Gu Ya said is true. People have forgotten about snake people including Zhang Tao.
tenant.
"Hey, why doesn't this old man respond?" I ordered the porridge in a loud voice, but the old man by the stove didn't respond at all, as if he didn't hear my voice.
"Is he deaf?" I wondered in my heart, but I repeated loudly: "Grandpa, give me a bowl of porridge."
The old man finally heard me, but he only responded with a dying breath and still didn't turn around to look at me.
Although the old man did not turn around and look at me, I always felt that there was a pair of eyes on his back, and those eyes were looking at me with a serious look.
Soon, the porridge was cooked, and I sat on a rickety chair. What caught my eye was the only table in the compartment. This table was also shabby, with some yellowed bowls and chopsticks scattered on it.
.
"After you ask the question, hurry up and leave. This place is too dirty, and there is a strange smell." Ever since I entered this "Warm Porridge under the Moon", I have been a little uneasy.
The old man put the porridge in a bowl, then walked towards me holding the bowl in both hands.
While serving the porridge, he was hunched over and his hands were shaking, causing the porridge in the bowl to tumble.
Afraid that the old man would spill the porridge, I quickly stepped forward and said anxiously: "Grandpa, let me do it."
After saying that, I stretched out my hands and pressed them on both sides of the bowl.
Since the old man hadn't withdrawn his hand yet, I touched his skinny hands for a moment. These skinny hands were very cold, as if they were covered with ice.
"The edge of the bowl is so hot, why are his hands so cold?" I was a little surprised.
Just when I was surprised, the old man retracted his hands, raised his head and glanced at me.
These were a pair of cloudy eyes, filled with visible bloodshot streaks.
"Thank you, little brother." The old man's high-pitched and thin voice sounded. After saying this, his face flushed and he looked very excited?
"Red? Excited? Maybe it's caused by the dim light." I muttered to myself, then took the bowl full of porridge and placed it on the old table.
The old man didn't leave. He stood beside me, staring at me, as if urging me to drink the porridge quickly.
"Do I really want to finish this bowl of porridge?" The scene of the old man splashing black snot from his nose appeared before my eyes, and I felt a dull pain in my stomach.
I didn't want to drink this bowl of porridge, but the old man's concentration made me hairy, so I had to raise my throat and swallow it all in one go.
After seeing me finish the bowl of porridge, the old man seemed very happy. He grinned his withered mouth and murmured to himself: "My child also likes to drink porridge. I will feed him porridge later, hehe."
Child? This old man is about seventy years old, and his child must be forty or fifty years old. For such an old man, he still needs to be fed by the old man?
There was something strange in the old man's words, but I didn't think much about it. I just thought that the old man used the wrong word. What he wanted to say was "make him drink porridge" instead of "feed him porridge."
The old man had already spoken, so I took the opportunity to ask: "Grandpa, do you remember Zhang Tao? He often comes to your place to drink porridge. He is thin and small."
"Zhang Tao? I have never seen this person before." The old man's cloudy eyes were filled with confusion.
After hearing this answer, I finally believed that Gu Ya had not lied to me. Everyone who had interacted with the snake tenants had forgotten them, and all traces of their lives had been erased.
"Now that I've confirmed that what Gu Ya said is true, it's better to pay the bill and leave. This porridge shop is a bit unusual." I secretly told myself, and then I wanted to pay the bill and leave.
But at this moment, the old man suddenly put his face close to mine and asked quietly: "Little brother, are you a college student?"
I was immediately startled, and quickly shrank back. After I saw the old man's face clearly, I breathed a sigh of relief: "Grandpa, you scared me to death. I'm a college student. What's wrong?"
"It's nothing, be careful about your teacher, ha, ha, ha ha ha," the old man said without any end. After he finished speaking, he laughed strangely.
"Be careful about my teacher?" Hearing this weird laughter, I threw down a few dollars and ran away subconsciously.
The old man didn't stop me and just let me run out of the porridge shop and disappear into the night.
After calming down a little, I stopped and turned around to look.
The endless black fog shrouded this porridge shop, making it difficult for me to see the lights in the shop clearly.
"This porridge shop is too weird. I'd better not come here again." I touched my back and found that it was covered with cold sweat, and my clothes were soaked by the cold sweat.
"I don't know if there's anything wrong with the porridge, I'd better spit it out." Having made up my mind, I dug my fingers deep into my throat.
Ouch…
…啕……
After several vomiting sounds, a puddle of completely blackened rice porridge fell to the ground.
Looking at the puddle of black rice porridge on the ground, I felt lingering fear: "Fortunately, I spit it out and only a few minutes after eating it, the puddle turned black."
After vomiting all the porridge in my stomach, I quickly stayed away from the porridge shop and did not dare to go near it again.
When I felt like I was far away, I opened my black backpack and took out the equally weird "Guidelines for the Management of Horror Bookstores".
Looking at the "Horror Bookstore Management Code" in my hand, my face was gloomy and uncertain, sometimes rising to joy, sometimes turning to solemnity.
The reason for joy is that this code helped me to deal with the aftermath. I did not have to deal with police interrogation, and the disappearance of the tenants in Shelou would not attract the attention of the outside world.
The reason for being dignified is that the ability of this code is too weird. Its method of dealing with the aftermath is exactly the same as that of parents who disappeared from the world. It tampered with people's memories in the same way. Maybe it caused the parents to disappear from the world.
"No wonder the code awarded me the bookstore to be built on Zhang Tao's property. No one remembers Zhang Tao and others and tampered with the Snake Building to be my property. Naturally, no one doubts the correctness of the bookstore." I sighed secretly.
The Snake House became my property out of thin air, and I didn't care at all: "After my parents disappeared from the world, everyone who interacted with them forgot about them. The snake tenants also ended up with the same fate as their parents. Is this a coincidence or not?"
The underlying truth?"
"Did my parents also die? So the code erased their existence?" I always feel that this code is inextricably related to the disappearance of my parents. Apart from this management code, I can't think of anyone who has such great ability.
Can tamper with people's memories out of thin air.
"Perhaps the thing is very simple. It was this code that killed my parents and then erased their existence!" I suddenly hated this code and thought it was the initiator of my parents' disappearance.
"The disappearance of my parents is a conspiracy against me. Now I am in front of you, come on, kill me!" I clutched the code tightly and cursed angrily.
At this moment, I really wanted to throw away this code and end this matter.
But soon, I woke up from my anger: "If this code is really the initiator of my parents' disappearance, how can it help me deal with the aftermath?"
If it doesn't help me deal with the aftermath, I will face endless troubles, and if the situation is bad, I may be thrown into jail.
"Not only did it help me deal with the aftermath, but it also gave me a nine-story house out of thin air. If it wanted to harm me, it would not bother to do anything."
"And its ability is so powerful that it can kill me silently without any need to frame my parents."
"It shouldn't have framed my parents. There is someone else who framed my parents. I must find him out!"
After thinking about everything, I put down this code and headed back to the Snake Tower.
I was so anxious to verify how to deal with the aftermath that I actually forgot the original intention of this outing. The original intention of this outing was to inspect the physical bookstore that was awarded to me.
Since this code can tamper with other people's memories out of thin air, it should also be able to quietly build a bookstore.
Thinking of this, my pace quickened, and I really wanted to rush back to the Snake Tower to see the mysterious physical bookstore.
But we were only halfway through the journey when I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t bought a light bulb yet: “It’s only around nine o’clock in the evening, when the night market is in full swing, and the hardware store probably hasn’t closed yet, so I’d better buy the light bulbs and install them first, because there’s no electric light late at night.
It’s very inconvenient, and the phone’s screen is broken and needs to be replaced.”
Then, I stopped and walked in the other direction.
This direction leads to a bustling street night market, where the lights are bright and the streets are bustling with people. Compared with it, the streets near the Snake Tower are completely remote.